


The Artist

by aperture_living



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Fourth Wall, M/M, Minor Violence, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:55:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperture_living/pseuds/aperture_living
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zacharie knew before the Batter did, but that was nothing unusual. In fact, it seemed rather par for the course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Artist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fal (Laboratory)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laboratory/gifts).



> For a wonderful friend on their birthday.

Zacharie watched the massacre through two filters: the shadows of Valerie’s face and the cloudy dirtiness of the tram’s windows that were littered with streaks of dirty fingers and muddied glass. He could see the shapes outside, could hear the screams: that unfortunate oversized Elsen wailing for help on desperate lungs, and the cold efficiency of the Batter and his tools, his helpers floating behind him. Wails pulsed through the metal walls of the small car, begging pleas for aid, and it was interrupted only by the calloused downward strike of his weapon of choice.

It was interesting watching it from here in this safe steel cocoon. This was the purifier at work, his holy agenda furthering its reach across the lands. Every swing was a motion of muscles honed for just such a purpose, the look on his face a sublime wickedness that did not fit with the promise of “peace” he provided. It was a glimpse of what the merchant knew lingered underneath, and as the bat struck the misshapen darkened head and it burst open like so much rotten fruit, Zacharie found that he still held at least upper hand on that. 

What he saw in the Batter, the Batter could not see in him. He dealt in masks for a reason.

When the Batter entered the tram again, Zacharie watched the tacky red footfalls that marked the dusty metal floors. The color dipped between the ridges, dark against corrugated metal, a sin in something so modern, so monochromatic; it slipped off the end of the bat with a hushed patter that seemed so unlike the death shrieks and strikes he heard before. Everything was in extremes with this person: the lengthy silences interspersed with the loud crashes of violence. There was no in between, no medium, and there never would be. 

And they didn’t really have enough time to let there be, did they? Zacharie knew the ultimate truth; the end was near, looming, the game almost over, the screen almost black, title credits almost rolling. There was no looming redemption arc, no character exposition, nothing but the surprises and the guilt, the death and the finale. 

But today, there would be time. He could feel it in the air, in every nuance he noticed, in the colors and hues. In fact, today, they might have too much time.

The tram stuttered and Zacharie smiled where no one could see it. The air was warm and stuffy and smelled like malevolence, and when The Batter stood up, Zacharie sat down. They looked at each other for a long moment, the train still rolling long after it should have stopped. 

Zacharie knew before the Batter did, but that was nothing unusual. In fact, it seemed rather par for the course.

“Why are we still going?” he asked, hand tightening on the weapon, knuckled pointed like sharpened glass. Every detail in the small car seemed heightened, masterful, stunning. “It should have stopped by now.”

The laugh was subtle, short of mocking but full of knowing. “I was wondering when they were going to do this. Apparently now seems like the appropriate moment.”

A skeptical look followed Zacharie as the Batter went down on his knees in front of the merchant in jerky, almost broken movements thick with refusal. The expression turned confused, then mildly feral, as his hands moved to the masked man’s pants and started to work them open. 

“...I am not the one doing this,” the Batter hissed, grinding it out through his teeth. 

“Of course you’re not.” Zacharie leaned down to snatch the bat up, end still dripping blood. It was a hypnotizing shock of color in an otherwise colorless world, more colorless than it should have been by all logic and graces. Hm. It was a stylistic piece today, it seemed. Interesting. “None of us are.”

The weapon was slipped over and behind the Batter’s head, then brought down against his back, pressed against both shoulderblades as Zacharie held each end. From the corner of his eyes, the Batter could see the muscles in Zacharie’s arms as they protruded from the sleeves a well-worn t-shirt, could see all the minute scars and veins, every hair, the curved dirt under his nails. It was hypersensitive, perfect in detail, and while Zacharie was used to such oddities, he could see the concern in the Batter’s eyes; he was not. 

“They’ve come to draw us.” Zacharie leaned back, pulling the bat and purifier with him. “It happens far more frequently than you realize; you just seem to forget.”

The Batter pulled Zacharie’s cock from his pants, noted every centimeter of it, the small curve it had, the hue; he waited for a scent but received one. Why would he, when it had nothing to do with the sketch? Hissing as he leaned forward, he growled through his teeth, “This is beyond foolish. Why would they waste their time with us?”

Zacharie waited for his favorite part, the part where the Batter wrapped his lips around the merchant’s waiting length and the chords on Zacharie’s arms slightly protruded as he pulled him closer by the weapon. “In this context, we are but muses to them, something to inspire their blank canvas. Some would consider it flattery.”

The purifier spat some curse, but his lips were parted and then full of Zacharie. The air was still in the moving tram , as if waiting for the moment when the Batter would start dragging away, tearing back, returning back to his mission. There was tension, there was silence, the muscles going taunt as he attempted escape, and then-- nothing.

There it was, that sweet moment when the dawning realization that the Batter couldn’t pull back finally latched on, talons in, unable to be shaken off. Zacharie adored it, adored it like he adored the purifier’s mouth in these rare moments with all of its intricate detail: the threads of saliva, the bumps of the tastebuds, the velvet lining of his mouth was attached to him until a greater power said otherwise. Everything was hyperreal, all the physical manifestations heightened, as if someone had thrown a microscope to their world, to this one tiny little scene. It was marvelous, really. Today’s artist really wanted to get every detail.

“You won’t be able to move until they’re done,” Zacharie said, his eyes closing behind the mask. “You should get comfortable.”

Awhile. He could feel the restricting in the Batter, the worry, the fear. He wanted to jerk back and away, wanted to tear his mouth from that hardened dick, but he was stuck, a mannequin, a living mannequin locked in place by the will of an illustrator. Idly, Zacharie wondered if his knees hurt from the corrugated metal floor or if his jaw was sore from being stretched so; it couldn’t be easy down there. The train itself still ran, though the path was smooth, seamless, only the speedlines that were almost too perfect through the windows shone any illusion to actual movement. Background wasn’t important, then.

The muffled sounds as the Batter tried to talk only turned him on more, the tongue moving, vibrating, the drool roping around his cock like ropes, and it always worked like this (when they weren’t being drawn as eviscerated, of course; those were the hard stills, the ones when the agony was white-hot and gruesome, cruel, lasting for hours, sometimes days if the urge to draw them left as Zacharie or Dedan or the Batter stood in loops of their own intestines). The Batter would always fight in the beginning, muffle and growl like a drowned cat, before growing tired and falling into complacency. Zacharie never grew bored with it, this game; why would he when he was, more often than not, on the beneficial end?

The merchant’s fingers tightened on the bat, liking the way it wrinkled that striped jersey and made the back arch against it as the Batter bent down. The details were not lost on him, just like he knew the mouth around him was in a hopeless sneer with a flash of enraged teeth and his eyes were cast shamelessly to the left, narrowed, full of venomous hate.

“Let us hope our artist is an inspired one, purifier,” Zacharie chuckled, his hips ever-so-slightly arching into that frozen mouth. “Or else we might be here awhile.”


End file.
